Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!helios!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!seismo!ukma!uflorida!haven!decuac!hussar.dco.dec.com!mjr
From: mjr@hussar.dco.dec.com (Marcus J. Ranum)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals
Subject: Re: What is the kernel doing?
Message-ID: <1990Nov16.153331.11781@decuac.dec.com>
Date: 16 Nov 90 15:33:31 GMT
References: <1940@necisa.ho.necisa.oz> <1990Nov16.082554.14085@fiver>
Sender: news@decuac.dec.com (Network News)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Washington Ultrix Resource Center
Lines: 27

In article <1990Nov16.082554.14085@fiver> palowoda@fiver (Bob Palowoda) writes:

> [...] when I hit the <space bar> I assumed
>it caused a raw character read. And in turn a process context switch. The
>inode functions <a guess here> is some sort of sync with the open stdio to
>the cache. namei gets a inode from the current path and as Brian said
>"don't know what this is doing exactly". Why it does 5 directory block 
>access is still got me confused. For one character?

	That does sound rather bizarre - is it possible that whatever shell
is reading the space bar is doing something awful like checking the last
update on mailboxes or setting $cwd or something like that ? Yeah, I *KNOW*
it shouldn't do that, but with all the hokey stuff people put in their
shells these days, who knows ? :) Maybe a really braindead file name
completion routine ?

	Of course, I could be waaay off base here, since I missed the start
of this thread. Are you typing this Space Bar of Doom into some command
interpreter or other, or does your monitor somehow ignore stupid things
the application might be doing ?

mjr.
-- 
"When choosing between two evils, give preference to the council of your
tummy over that of your testes. The history of mankind is full of disasters
that could have been averted by a good meal, followed by a nap on the couch."
		-Me, as explained to me by my wife's cat Strummer.